


The Great Library Heist

by WriterJace



Series: The Corona!AU no one has waited for [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: COVID-19, Coronavirus, Gen, Law School, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterJace/pseuds/WriterJace
Summary: “You alright there?” Matt asked.“Uh... Yes? Maybe? I don’t know. I can’t find my business law book, that weird special edition that I am basically basing my whole argument on. I’m sure I packed it. It must be somewhere here.”“Oh. I wish I could help, but...”Foggy had taken him into his home, had shown so much kindness to Matt even when he felt like he didn’t do enough in return. Yes, Matt had offered to help Foggy rewrite his paper, but that wasn’t enough. Not when Matt knew he could do more to help.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Series: The Corona!AU no one has waited for [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702345
Kudos: 35





	The Great Library Heist

After taking a day off their responsibilities and revelling in the opportunity to just relax, it didn’t take long for Matt to feel guilty about taking a break from their studies when officially, the term was still continuing. Everyone was at home so there were no in-person classes, but they had received e-mails telling them that classes would resume online soon and that the deadlines for assignments were unchanged.

So, Foggy happily shooed Candace out of their bedroom and not nearly so happily settled down to work on a paper he had procrastinated on for too long already. He spread his books and laptop out on his bed, his preferred place for studying and working even when they did have space available, and Matt took Foggy’s desk.

Matt himself didn’t currently have anything urgent he needed to work on since he wasn’t taking all the same classes as Foggy, but he still had notes from class he needed to review and books to read to prepare for the next classes. Besides, with how much Foggy was sighing, letting him think that Matt didn’t also have work to do would only make Foggy feel more miserable, and that wasn’t something any of them wanted while they were stuck in this small space together.

The sighing got louder. More drawn out. Then Foggy’s heart rate increased as he went through his bag a third time and counted his books. Something was wrong.

“You alright there?” Matt asked.

“Uh... Yes? Maybe? I don’t know. I can’t find my business law book, that weird special edition that I am basically basing my whole argument on. I’m sure I packed it. It must be somewhere here.”

“Oh. I wish I could help, but...”

“Yeah, no, don’t worry about it. Just make sure you have all your stuff because I’d be about as helpful with finding a specific braille book as you’d be here.”

Matt snorted. “I think I’m good. I mostly use online sources anyway, it’s less of a hassle.”

“Yeah, except that this book just does not exist online and I really need it if I don’t want to rewrite basically all that I have so far.”

“I hope you can avoid that.”

“Yeah... I’m sure it’ll turn up though. I’ll just... I don’t know, write the introduction part maybe, then try again later. Or I’ll ask my mum, she’s got plenty of practise finding things that I’ve lost.”

“Ha! Yeah, from the state of your half of our room, I’m sure she does.”

“Hey, I resent that!” He did not deny it though because they both knew Matt was right. Foggy had learned to be clean when it came to the things they shared like the bathroom, but anywhere that Matt did not need to know where things were, Foggy tended to keep in a constant state of chaos.

They worked quietly for a while, and if it were not for the sounds Foggy’s family made or the unfamiliar noises of the neighbourhood, it could almost feel like they were just in their dorm room like usual.

But they were not. Their dorm room was closed, law school was closed, and with it, the library. And Foggy’s book did not turn up.

That evening, Foggy was not in a good mood. He and Matt were sitting on the sofa together, and Foggy told him, “I think I need to rewrite my paper tomorrow. I can’t wait too much longer or I won’t have time to do it, and I think I need to give up on trying to find that stupid book.”

Matt winced at the thought. “If there’s anything I can do to help, tell me. If you need someone to brainstorm ideas with, anything.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Another sigh. “I appreciate it.”

They made up Matt’s makeshift bed together, then Foggy trudged to his bedroom to get ready for sleep. The miserable air surrounding him was almost palpable, and Matt wished he could do more.

He could hear Mr and Mrs Nelson drift off to sleep. Candace was still awake, on her phone, but she typically stayed up late, then “slept away the whole day”, according to Foggy. Foggy himself was turning and turning, seemingly unable to sleep.

Matt got up. Foggy had taken him into his home, had shown so much kindness to Matt even when he felt like he didn’t do enough in return. He never complained about having to clean parts of the room or guiding Matt or describing things. Yes, Matt had offered to help Foggy rewrite his paper, but that wasn’t enough. Not when Matt knew he could do more to help.

As quietly as possible, Matt put on his shoes and a hoodie – he had learned from his experience of last night – and sneaked out of the flat. It was only the second story and he could easily get down via the window sills. After all, he’d done just that the night before. Once Matt reached the ground, he found a nearby high building with a convenient emergency ladder. Upon reaching the roof, fell into a run.

It was exhilarating in a way that he didn’t often get to feel. Last night, he had felt as though he was running from something – and he had been in a way – but this time he was just _running_. He had done this sort of thing with Stick sometimes, like trying to sneak out of the orphanage with Stick waiting outside and telling him to hurry up so he would learn to be both quick and quiet about it. But after Stick left, Matt was left to his own device on continuing his training, and that included a lot of trying to understand the signals other people gave him and training in a gym at night, but not a lot of climbing down house walls and jumping over rooftops.

It was fun, similarly to how a good, balanced debate could be fun. Except that here the consequences for failing were broken bones or even death, not just a bad grade.

Getting to the flat via public transportation had taken seemingly forever and Matt had felt miserable the whole time. Running along rooftops was the exact opposite. It felt like he was flying, and he was at the dorm building in record time, even if he did have to stop occasionally to re-orient himself and listen for the next building to jump to.

From here on it was easy to get into their room. He’d worked out how to do this in his head already, just in case, shortly after he had moved in. Stick had taught him to always be prepared, and Matt tried to follow that rule in all parts of his life. That was why Matt already knew that the administration’s window didn’t lock, and they hadn’t bothered to fix it yet. That was likely because they were on the fifth floor and assumed they were safe from intruders there. And for the most part, that was true. Matt rarely fit into “the most part” of anything.

Matt climbed on a car standing next to the building, which gave him enough height to get onto the windowsill of the first floor rooms. The windowsills were good and sturdy, he knew they’d take his weight. From there, he could jump, grab onto the windowsill of the next floor, and pull himself up until he reached the administration window. He slid open the window, climbed in, and got to work on picking the office door. Once he was in the hallway, he could just take the stairs down to the second floor where Foggy and his room was. He’d brought the key to that one, so no lock-picking necessary.

Once in the room, Matt quickly got to work. He smelled out anything made of paper and ran his fingers over the first few pages. The title page of any book was too glossy for him to make out, but the pages inside he could usually read. He found the Lord of the Rings series, a few dusty cookbooks, even a bible (likely given to Foggy from someone on the streets and he’d been too polite to say no). No business law book.

Matt sniffed again and listened to how the air of his breaths bounced off the objects around him. But no, he was sure that the book he needed was not here. Foggy must have forgotten to borrow the book from the library in the first place, then. Which made things... complicated. Getting into the dorm room was one thing, but Matt had never attempted to break into the library. There had never been a reason to, seeing as it was usually open for most of his waking hours and the few hours that it did close, he usually was fine with studying in his room instead.

But Matt had come all this way, and he was not going to give up now. Foggy needed his help, and Matt would be damned if he didn’t try his best to provide that help.

Besides, it was ridiculous for a law school to completely close its library and any access to the books within for weeks or months on end and still expect students to keep doing their work. So really, getting this book for Foggy was only protecting his exorbitant-tuition-fees-given right for access to educational material.

Getting into the library was something Matt had never expected he needed to do, so he was not prepared for this part of the plan – well, or lack of plan. 

Matt circled the building, extending all his senses as much as possible and listening intently, but he came up with nothing. No air flow that indicated an opening big enough for him to fit through, no creaks of not-quite-closed doors moving. Maybe there was something higher up that he couldn’t sense from down there?

The building was old and made of big blocks of stone. It should be possible for him to climb up, but it wouldn’t be easy or painless. Above him, he could sense a structure – maybe a railing of sorts? A balcony? Getting up there and seeing whether there would be a way to get in there was his best shot so far because he couldn’t work out any other way to get in. So up he climbed.

The stone was rough and he could feel the edges and roughness of the stone dig into the pads of his fingers. He also kept slipping off with his feet, unable to get a good purchase.

When he reached the balcony, he was disappointed again. There was a glass door, but it was closed and only able to open from the inside. It was turning towards the early hours of morning soon, he knew, and he still needed time to even find the book, so with a deep breath, Matt made a fist, locked his wrist, and punched the glass. Fortunately, it was a thin pane of glass and shattered on first impact. Not so fortunately, it left Matt with a bloody fist and little pieces of glass stuck in his skin.

He wrapped his fist in his shirt so he wouldn’t leave behind a trail of blood and climbed inside. This door was only closed but not shut, so he quickly got to the main part of the library and its familiar smell of paper and ink and the dirt from millions of students touching the books over the decades.

Using his sense of smell like he did in the dorm room would be pointless here, there was nothing that set Foggy’s book apart from all the others, so he needed to do this a different way. He walked to where he knew the business law section was (ten rows in, then two to the left) and started checking one book after another, moving from the back of the aisle forwards. The books were in order of the author’s name, and he didn’t remember the exact name but thought it had started with an A... maybe an E?, so he started at the start of the alphabet and worked his way up. It was tedious work, and as much as Matt tried to do this quickly, it still seemed to take him hours. Take out a book, flip to the correct page inside, run your finger over the page until you find the title, put it back, pull out the next book, ...

American Business and... no. Taking the Law in... no. This Book is Gay... what? That must have been put in the wrong section, so Matt laid it on top of the other books instead of putting it back for the librarian to find once work here resumed. Small businesses and Big... also no. Autonomous Institutions as Subjects of Business Law... There it was! Finally!

Matt stuffed the book in his coat pocket and went to go back to where he’d come in when he heard something he hadn’t detected before, too focused on his mission to properly take inventory of his surroundings. A stupid mistake that could have cost him his life in different circumstances. Matt listened closely and yes, there really was another heartbeat in the building with him.

He crept closer to the sound and as he did, he also trained his other senses on that person. A strong smell was the next sensation that hit him. A homeless person, probably. No one to be worried about then, the homeless were rarely trained in martial arts to the extent that Matt was. It did raise the question of how that person had come in, however.

Carefully trying to stay unnoticed, he followed the smell of where the homeless person had moved in the building, and it led him to the cellars. There was a door there that probably looked like it was closed, but when Matt stood in front of it, he could feel the faintest wisp of air flow in between the door and its frame. Not quite closed, then. He pushed it and it didn’t budge. He pushed again, harder this time, and eventually it dislodged and Matt heard a pebble roll on the ground. He pushed the pebble back in place with his foot, put the door back in its almost closed position, and took off. It was time he went back to the apartment before anyone woke up.

At the apartment, Matt quietly opened the door to Foggy’s room, where he was met with the two sleeping forms of Foggy and Candace. He put the book at the bottom of Foggy’s suitcase, where he hoped Foggy would think he could have overlooked it in his search, then finally got ready for bed. The bloody t-shirt, he discarded at the bottom of the trash can, and his hand he cleaned and bandaged as much as he could with the small first aid kit he found. Then he finally went to sleep.

The next morning, Matt was woken by Foggy’s excited shout.

“Matt! Matt! I decided to look one more time and oh my god I must be such a dumbass, but I found it! I – What’s wrong with your hand?”

“Uh... I fell, last night.”

“You fell?” Foggy didn’t believe him, shit, he should have prepared for this, but he’d been so tired when he finally got back from retrieving the book and now his brain refused to provide him with a believable excuse.

“... Yeah. When I went to brush my teeth. I must have tripped, I don’t know on what.”

“O...kay. Something fishy’s going on here. But I don’t know what and honestly, right now I don’t care because I found the book and that means I don’t have to rewrite the paper.”

“Congratulations! That’s great.”

“Thanks, bud. I’m gonna let you get back to sleep now.”

“No, it’s alright, I’m already up.”

He was still tired, but the genuine joy and relief in Foggy’s voice, the more relaxed stance as opposed to his tense body from yesterday, made all the exhaustion and pain worth it. 


End file.
